[1]I’ve been thinking…
Hillary Clinton says people need a “champion”. No Mrs. Clinton, the people need a “leader”. For those of you who have followed me on Facebook, you know that I have said a number of times that the problem in American politics is we have too many “champions” and not enough “leaders”.
I’m not looking for a “champion” of this or that, and certainly not Mrs. Clinton. I’m not looking for a President who defines his or her candidacy as focused on a particular issue. What I want is a conservative leader to emerge in my party who will galvanize the American people to a vision of restoring America.
For me, that means a leader who holds fast to the fundamentals of a democratic republic and understands that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It’s a leader who understands that God had a providential hand in our founding and is not ashamed to say so. It’s a leader who understands that free enterprise is the one economic organizing system that benefits the entire spectrum of our citizenry. I want a leader who understands that national security, economic vibrancy, and limited government are a vital alliance in the American system and that isolationism, confiscatory wealth redistribution, and intrusive and burgeoning government will weaken us as a nation and destroy our freedom.
But what I have seen so far on both sides, Mrs Clinton representing liberals and a host of Republicans representing conservatism of one strip or the other, is lacking. I am still waiting for a leader—as I define it—to step forward. I don’t see him or her yet. But what I saw in Mrs Clinton yesterday is exactly what I expected; a driven politician who will weave warm and cozy rhetoric together about being a “champion” into an otherwise visionless expression of raw ambition.
That’s not leadership.
Delegate Scott Lingamfelter (HOD-31) represents parts of Fauquier and Prince William Counties.